I couldn’t be more excited to show you the pattern I’ve got in the new Knitscene Magazine!

Tulip Slouch - Knitscene Spring 2012

This is the hat that was suppose to be a top. When I submitted this duplicate stitch tulip motif it was sideways across the top of a slouchy, short sleeved tunic. Lisa Shroyer, the editor of Knitscene, emailed me saying she liked the tulips but didn’t love the top, and wondered if I saw the motif on a different project. We emailed back and forth a few sketches of a possible clutch and hat ideas before Lisa gave the ok for this slouch.

Tulip Slouch from the Back

I was so excited to see these pictures when the issue preview was released last week. I really love this hat. It’s so fun and bright, and the tulips give a little shout out to my Dutch heritage! And duplicate stitch is something that I hope gains some popularity. As a girl who love embroidery but hats intarsia, I end up duplicate stitching all my color work.

Me in my Tulip Slouch!

I took some pictures of my sample before mailing it off to Knitscene last August. My knitting this sample was a little frantic because I was in Minneapolis at the time, and the yarn got mailed to Chicago. By the time I got the yarn I had like 10 days to knit the hat, and I messed up the first sample beyond repair, so I had to start over. Needless to say, I didn’t duplicate stitch for a while after that!

Tulips Down One Side...

The body of the hat is knit in one piece, and tulips are duplicate stitched like they are growing from the bottom to the top. When you are wearing it, you can see the tulips wrap around your head, shown going down one side…

... And Up the Other!

… and up the other. It’s CUTE y’all!

I used Knit Picks Gloss Fingering in a whole mess of colors. This would be a great hat to knit if you had a bunch of sock yarn scraps laying around. You’d just pick your neutral main color and duplicate stitch with your scraps! It’d be beautiful in any combination of colors.